{"id":91030,"date":"2024-07-09T11:53:11","date_gmt":"2024-07-09T11:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/09\/frances-far-left-firebrand-ready-to-govern\/"},"modified":"2024-07-09T11:53:11","modified_gmt":"2024-07-09T11:53:11","slug":"frances-far-left-firebrand-ready-to-govern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/09\/frances-far-left-firebrand-ready-to-govern\/","title":{"rendered":"France\u2019s Far-Left Firebrand: Ready to Govern?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/07\/09\/multimedia\/09france-left-01-fzlh\/09france-left-01-fzlh-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"France\u2019s Far-Left Firebrand: Ready to Govern?\" title=\"France\u2019s Far-Left Firebrand: Ready to Govern?\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Emphatic, pugnacious and demanding: The style met the moment in the far-left leader Jean-Luc M\u00e9lenchon\u2019s speech to a fired-up crowd of thousands celebrating victory in Sunday\u2019s French legislative elections.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Standing before supporters in the working-class 20th arrondissement of Paris, Mr. M\u00e9lenchon addressed himself to President Emmanuel Macron, and not politely. \u201cThe president should either resign or name one of us prime minister,\u201d he declared.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Other leftist leaders have said that there should be \u201cdiscussions\u201d about the future of the country. Not this one. The crowd on Sunday roared.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. M\u00e9lenchon\u2019s tone and hard-line stance have given him a devoted, youthful following \u2014 the only leftist leader with one \u2014 and made him both adored and hated, marginalized and central in French politics. More French have a negative opinion of him, 73 percent, than they do of Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Rally. But he also attracts large crowds who hang on his every word, as they did on Sunday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Now he is necessarily at the center of the discussion of what might lie ahead for France: his brand of leftism or the milder form represented by his critics within <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/07\/07\/world\/europe\/france-election-new-popular-front-far-right.html?searchResultPosition=2\" title=\"\">the winning leftist coalition<\/a>, the New Popular Front. His party, France Unbowed, won the most seats in Parliament, 75, in the coalition.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He has said the person chosen to lead the government should be himself. Unlike the other leaders on the left, he has come close to the presidency, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/03\/26\/world\/europe\/melenchon-france-election-left.html\" title=\"\">nearly making it to the runoff<\/a> two years ago. He told France 5 television on June 22 that \u201cvery obviously\u201d he was ready to be prime minister. \u201cI intend to govern this country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It is a prospect that even members of Mr. M\u00e9lenchon\u2019s own coalition, wary of what is viewed as his intermittent extremism, have vowed will never happen. \u201cIf he really wants to help the New Popular Front, he should put himself off to the side,\u201d said Fran\u00e7ois Hollande, the mild-mannered former president, a Socialist and now newly elected deputy, two weeks ago. \u201cHe should just shut up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He is not going to, and that is both a source of his support and his major problem with the others in the leftist coalition that almost immediately threatens to fracture despite its narrow victory on Sunday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe problem they will have, when the president looks for a new government, the others don\u2019t want M\u00e9lenchon,\u201d said G\u00e9rard Grunberg, a political scientist and research director emeritus at the National Center for Scientific Research. \u201cHe makes a real union of the left impossible. He\u2019s very provocative. The left is totally disunited.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For now, France is without a government, and it is not clear how it will get one. No party or alliance won a majority in the elections. Despite that fact, Mr. M\u00e9lenchon said on Sunday, \u201cWe\u2019re not going to cancel a page or a comma of our program.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That program is a redistributionist, egalitarian, hostile-to-capitalism economic vision that was inspired in large part from Mr. M\u00e9lenchon\u2019s <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lemonde.fr\/politique\/article\/2024\/06\/21\/pouvoir-d-achat-retraites-croissance-comment-le-nouveau-front-populaire-a-compose-son-programme-pour-les-legislatives_6241927_823448.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">2022 presidential platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Sunday, he spoke of the coalition\u2019s <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/07\/02\/business\/france-economy-macron-national-rally.html\" title=\"\">economic plans<\/a> as if he owned them: raising the monthly after-tax minimum wage to 1,600 euros, from 1,398 euros (or about $1,700 from about $1,500) \u2014 \u201cWe\u2019ll decree it,\u201d Mr. M\u00e9lenchon said; freezing prices on food, energy and fuel; $162 billion in taxes on the rich. Other elements include payments to households for costs associated with their children\u2019s education. The right, and Mr. Macron, have criticized it as adding an unbearable fiscal burden to an already deeply indebted country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. M\u00e9lenchon didn\u2019t even have to bring up another signature element in the left\u2019s platform: \u201cRetirement at 60!\u201d the youthful crowd began chanting spontaneously.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It is hard to imagine Mr. Macron appointing Mr. M\u00e9lenchon prime minister. They are not fans of each other. Mr. Macron <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lemonde.fr\/elections-legislatives-2022\/article\/2022\/06\/09\/depuis-clichy-sous-bois-emmanuel-macron-poursuit-son-offensive-contre-jean-luc-melenchon_6129477_6104324.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">has compared<\/a> the leftist\u2019s political movement to the far right National Rally. Mr. M\u00e9lenchon is happy to return the compliment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cUnder his baton, France has become a global example of police violence and government abuse of power, in a regime that is supposed to be democratic,\u201d Mr. M\u00e9lenchon wrote of the president in his 2023 book, \u201cWe Can Do Better! Toward a Citizens\u2019 Revolution,\u201d which was not translated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He fights with the media, targeting individual reporters, professes hate for the United States and love for leftist Latin American dictators whose prolixity he shares. He has offered praise for authoritarian regimes in China, Cuba and Venezuela. \u201cThe Yankees represent everything I detest,\u201d <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lemonde.fr\/election-presidentielle-2012\/article\/2011\/06\/20\/camarade-melenchon_1538336_1471069.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">he told Le Monde in 2011<\/a>. \u201cA pretentious and arrogant empire, made up of ignoramuses, of pitiful leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A former Trotskyist, longtime senator from the Paris exurbs and onetime government minister under the pragmatic Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin, Mr. M\u00e9lenchon is a reader of Faulkner who left the Socialists in 2008 to found his own party, moving further and further left.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He has refused to condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization, has fought publicly with the leaders of Jewish organizations in France and is regularly accused of antisemitism, which he denies. He sometimes <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lemonde.fr\/politique\/article\/2024\/01\/05\/antisemitisme-comment-jean-luc-melenchon-cultive-l-ambiguite_6209231_823448.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">traffics insinuations<\/a> that are stereotypes, once saying, for instance, that a Jewish former economy minister, Pierre Moscovici, didn\u2019t \u201cthink French\u201d but thought \u201cinternational finance.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThere is at least an ambiguity there that favors antisemitism,\u201d Mr. Grunberg said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Patrick Weil, another political scientist, agreed: \u201cThere\u2019s a limit to M\u00e9lenchon. He\u2019s considered by a big part of the population as dangerous and antisemitic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When Mr. M\u00e9lenchon said on Sunday that a top priority would be to \u201crecognize as quickly as possible the state of Palestine,\u201d the crowd erupted in roars of \u201cFree Palestine.\u201d As at other M\u00e9lenchon rallies, kaffiyehs and Palestinian flags were much in evidence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">One of his <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.editions-harmattan.fr\/livre-robespierre_l_innocent_simon_mauger-9782140329685-76494.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">longtime heroes<\/a> is Maximilien Robespierre, the most bloodstained of the French revolutionaries, and during the campaign he showed his own authoritarian side, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lemonde.fr\/politique\/article\/2024\/06\/15\/la-crise-au-sein-de-la-france-insoumise-fragilise-l-ensemble-du-nouveau-front-populaire_6240293_823448.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">purging five members<\/a> of his France Unbowed party who had often disagreed with him. \u201cOur democracy deserves better than you,\u201d Fran\u00e7ois Ruffin, an independent-minded deputy and party member who was not one of those purged, posted on social media.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Yet he has a formula \u2014 populist economics to appeal to hard-up youths, fierce hostility toward Israel to appeal to working-class French Muslims in the suburbs, anti-American and anti-Europe rhetoric, and a pro-immigrant stance \u2014 that proved to be a winner in this election. Many in the crowd on Sunday cheering him on were of Arab and African origin. \u201cThe French people are not a religion, not a skin color,\u201d Mr. M\u00e9lenchon said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He is the rare French politician who speaks approvingly of immigration, employing the term \u201ccreolization\u201d to describe his country, as he did Sunday. \u201cThat is very positive,\u201d Mr. Weil said. \u201cHe integrates into citizenship young people of North African and African origin. He says France has become a melting pot. It\u2019s super important.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It is one of the many things that has earned him supporters. In a pre-emptive move on Monday, one of France Unbowed\u2019s leaders, Mathilde Panot, told the RTL radio station that Mr. M\u00e9lenchon was \u201cabsolutely not disqualified\u201d to be prime minister.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">There were echoes of his hero Robespierre, who presided over the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, in his rhetoric Sunday night.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe government of the New Popular Front will have no other authority than what the people give it,\u201d he said \u2014 a line that could have been written 230 years ago by Robespierre, a man who ceaselessly proclaimed that \u201cthe people\u201d were the only source of government authority.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt\u2019s not the politics of the past that will continue,\u201d Mr. M\u00e9lenchon said, \u201cit\u2019s the people who have surged up from all the working-class neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/07\/09\/world\/europe\/france-election-left-melenchon.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Emphatic, pugnacious and demanding: The style met the moment in the far-left leader Jean-Luc M\u00e9lenchon\u2019s speech to a fired-up crowd of thousands celebrating victory in Sunday\u2019s French legislative elections. Standing before supporters in the working-class 20th arrondissement of Paris, Mr. M\u00e9lenchon addressed himself to President Emmanuel Macron, and not politely. \u201cThe president should either resign [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91031,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/07\/09\/multimedia\/09france-left-01-fzlh\/09france-left-01-fzlh-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[78196,78197,5238,6058,3161],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91030"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91030"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91032,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91030\/revisions\/91032"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}